Enjoying the Journey

It’s a family road-trip. The car is loaded and stocked. The kids are buckled in. And so… you start off. You’re barely on the highway when the first kid asks:

“Are we there yet?”

Patiently you explain how much further there is to go. It doesn’t make much difference because a few minutes later:

“Are we there yet?”

And so it goes throughout the day, until you are ready to pull your hair out in frustration.

While I’ve seen this scenario in comedy movies, I’m happy to report that my children actually never did that much, though we have had our share of family road-trips. We cultivated the attitude that “getting there is half the fun.”

If you’ve read my blog for very long you know that my family loves road-trips. We can easily spend 15 hours or more a day driving, and have very few complaints. We enjoy conversation, audio books, travel games, looking at the scenery, and stopping at points of interest. And yes, we do look forward to arriving at our destination.

How does that relate to homeschooling?  Here is what I have learned:

Rather than focusing on the daily ups and downs,

enjoy the journey.

I remember the daily ups and downs. How excruciating it was to sit beside an emerging reader listening to her laboriously sound out the words in her first grade reader. Days when it seemed like we didn’t accomplish anything we meant to. Days when I wondered if the kids were really learning, or if they would be better served going off to public school.

“Are we there yet?”

Mixed in with regularity were the delightful days reading piles of wonderful stories… and laughing and learning together.

The years went by way faster than it seemed like they should, and before we knew it we had arrived at our destination. It was a wonderful journey!

Linking up with Timberdoodle’s Homeschool Encouragement blog hop…